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What Every Entrepreneur Needs To Know About Sales Calls -- And Customers

Bill McGowan makes a living helping corporate executives and celebrities avoid making fools of themselves on TV. He should know how: He spent years doing on-air reporting and anchoring at ABC and CBS. His approach stresses presentation — which is why McGowan has a lot of useful pointers for entrepreneurs when it comes to pitching to prospective customers.

The founder and CEO of Clarity Media Group in New York City, McGowan stresses that a sales pitch relies on a strong narrative; most entrepreneurs don’t know how to tell — and sell — a story, particularly one that illustrates a customer problem that you can solve. Ripping a page from his former life as a journalist, he advises leading with your best idea, as if it were a headline, because you only have 12-15 seconds of someone’s attention before it heads off to other pastures.

Body language counts. There are a million ways to project confidence — or self-doubt. Here’s a tip from McGowan’s book: “Sit up straight from the base of your spine. You should feel a little pinch in the small of your back so you can sit both forward and straight up.”

We also talked about how to follow up an initial sales call to close in on a deal. Key is being persistent without getting obnoxious. McGowan suggests subtle ways of nudging the prospective client with partial answers to a challenge you haven’t even been hired to resolve yet. Among the tools: a shift in first-person pronouns from “I” to “we” — as if you were already part of the team.

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Good article! Fundamental steps are well explained! I would also add knowing your “Customer Buying Cycle”. Knowing your “Customer Buying Cycle” will set up effective pre-call planning, sales interaction dialogue, and closing. Unfortunately, many sales professionals (including tenured) cannot tell you where there customers reside in the buying cycle, and understanding this can in most cases quicken and increase closing ratios. Thanks for the post! http://ah2andbeyond.com/customer-buying-cycle-efficiency-the-new-sales-competency/ www.ah2andbeyond.com